Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montréal Canadiens
7:00 PM on TSN 2&4, RDS, NHLN at Centre Bell
Opponent’s site: Eyes on the Prize

Them

The Canadiens played their Red and White scrimmage game on Sunday afternoon, so their second version of a team will have had something similar to game action already.

Canadiens Lines

LWCRW
92 - Jonathan Drouin28 - Christian Dvorak17 - Josh Anderson
49 - Rafael Harvey-Pinard71 - Jake Evans40 - Joel Armia
96 - Danick Martel48 - Jean-Sebastien Dea56 - Jesse Ylonen
55 - Michael Pezzetta53 - Jan Mysak80 - Gabriel Bourque
LDRDG
21 - Kaiden Guhle58 - David Savard34 - Jake Allen
59 - Mattias Norlinder8 - Ben Chiarot95 - Kevin Poulin
64 - Corey Schueneman20 - Chris Wideman

That’s one real top-six line that fades to AHLers very fast, and a few NHL defenders in front of Jake Allen. The race is on in Montréal for the backup goalie to Allen to start the season while they await Carey Price, so expect Poulin to play tonight as well.

Us

The Leafs are running out of options to keep their top two goalies out of game action too early this preseason, so here they are in the lineup for Game 2:

Also on hand is Ilya Mikheyev in his second appearance, as well as Semyon Der-Arguchintsev.

The interesting Curtis Douglas is one to watch if he actually plays. There are 13 forwards, so he might sit, but if not, one will be able to stop talking about his height. In Traverse City, it was amusing to watch other teams try to move him off the puck, and he was better offensively than I expected. He should be fun on the Marlies, where fun will be plentiful.

Also on hand is David Kämpf, and Ondřej Kaše for the first time in Leafs blue, and we get a look at PTO Nikita Gusev.

Adam Brooks should line up between Nick Ritchie and Mitch Marner as an Auston Matthews placeholder, but we’ll confirm that and the rest of the lines at game time tonight.

The Game

The Canadiens are already boringly familiar, and they’ll only get more so before the Leafs get to leave the country and play someone interesting. That’s weeks away, though, so for now, the goal of this game is for the Maple Leafs to double down on the intensity of Game 1.  Preseason isn’t about results, even though a lucky goal gets players noticed by the fans. It’s about playing a game that will lead to good results before fortune has its way.

Win or lose, that’s what we want from every person on the ice.

Game Coverage